The need for secure, anonymous connections to the internet has increased considerably in the past few years, as more and more users come to realize the importance of not being seen and followed online.

We’ve compiled a list of what we consider to be the best Virtual Private Network service providers — grouped by premium, free, and torrent-friendly. We’ll be updating the list regularly, so leave your feedback in the comments for services we should add (or even remove).

Premium VPNs

Intended for the heavy user, these professional VPN services offer the basic required privacy alongside a range of additional features, from increased encryption and mobile support to unlimited bandwidth and “zero records” keeping a log of what you’re browsing.

With 1,000 physical servers in 136 geographical locations across 87 countries, ExpressVPN’s focus is on speed. You don’t want a slow VPN when you can have a fast one, and ExpressVPN offers privacy on top of this with PTP, L2TP, and OpenVPN protocol support. For $6.67/month on a 12-month plan with 3 months free, you get a wide range of top VPN features, no logging, and Tor support (ExpressVPN has a .onion website, too).

With a monthly subscription of $2.75/month on a three-year plan, CyberGhost will give you a very easy to use VPN service. With apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, CyberGhost VPN’s user interface is broken up into six VPN uses.

For instance, if you want to Torrent Anonymously, simply select the corresponding option. Trying to evade the watchful eye of an oppressive government? Select Unblock Basic Websites. If you’re new to VPNs, CyberGhost might just be the introduction you need to understand the benefits.

For Android, iOS, Windows and macOS, pricing is reasonable at $49.88/year, an annual charge that works out at $4.99/month. With unlimited tunneling and a mobile-only plan, note that TunnelBear is offering 256-bit encryption.

NordVPN has numerous servers across the US, Europe, and Australia that are dedicated to ultra-fast streaming, Tor privacy, anti-DDOS, and more.

Most locations support the PPTP, L2TP, and OpenVPN protocols and all data is encrypted twice for tighter security. All of this is available for $11.95/month, though discounts are available for 6-month plans at $7/month and annual plans at $5.75/month. These prices are higher than they were in 2016.

Cross platform device support is on offer from VyprVPN, along with a free trial and affordable monthly tariff ($5) for unlimited data and three concurrent connections. Or you might upgrade to their VyprVPN Premium service, at $12.95/month, which offers five simultaneous connections. With desktop and mobile apps, VyprVPN might prove particularly useful to you used in conjunction with OpenELEC/Kodi powered media centers.

From the same team who brought you the ProtonMail encrypted email account comes this new virtual private network.>

Taking an unusual approach to pricing, ProtonVPN has a low-speed, free service, as well as a trio of premium options. The Basic package is $5/month; the Plus package $10/month, and adds dedicated servers, added security, and Tor servers to the mix. Finally, the Visionary package costs $30 monthly, features the additional servers mentioned, and adds ProtonMail.

Torrent-Friendly VPNs

Useful for encryption, anonymity, and reliability when downloading and sharing on P2P networks, torrent-friendly VPNs are slightly more expensive than the premium options, offering as they do a specialized service for a narrow group of users.

Ivacy VPN highlights its use as a torrent-friendly VPN, and is available for non-throttled, P2P-optimized file sharing for $9.95/month (or $40/year, or $44.95 for six months). Other features include the usual circumvention of region-blocking, the ability to stream anything from anywhere, and 256-bit encryption.

Also on offer from Ivacy is a “strict ZERO LOG policy” which should prevent your activity from being tracked or observed.

Claiming to be the fastest VPN in the world, Ivacy is ideal for torrenting and media-based streaming.

For just $6.49, SurfEasy Total gives monthly access to its VPN service with unlimited data and ad tracker blocking to users of Android, iOS, macOS and Windows. A subscription gives you support for up to five devices, unlimited bandwidth and torrenting.

Our final recommendation for a torrent-friendly VPN comes in the shape of IPVanish, available for as little as $6.49/month with annual billing ($10/month for monthly billing).

With over 500 VPN servers spread across 60+ countries, you get unlimited P2P traffic and unlimited bandwidth regardless. Claiming to be the world’s fastest VPN, IPVanish is available for Windows, Windows Phone, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Chromebook and even routers.

Free VPNs

Not all VPNs are paid services. If you have only an occasional need to access the web or other online service via a VPN, then signing up with a free service makes sense, especially if you’re concerned about payment privacy and don’t have a Bitcoin wallet.

With a monthly allowance of 500 MB a month, TunnelBear’s free option is potentially limiting to your VPN requirements. However, you can get a bonus 1 GB of data by taking part in the company’s Twitter promotion. TunnelBear Free is compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.

Like TunnelBear’s free service, OkayFreedom caps your VPN allowance at 500 MB a month, which means you will need to use it sparingly in most cases, even with an extra 100 MB available per referral. This free service is ad-supported, but can be slow at times.

If you’re not so keen to download a dedicated free VPN app, why not try the Opera browser? Since mid-2016 it has shipped with its own VPN, enabling users to easily bypass region blocking and keep their online transactions secure. It may not be the fastest VPN — and it’s unsuitable for streaming Netflix or torrenting — but Opera VPN is a very popular free choice. Indeed, we’re expecting other browsers to follow suit quite soon.

VPNs for Netflix

You may be reviewing this list to find a VPN solution that is going to work as a Netflix region blocking bypass. While Netflix has asserted that it will be blocking VPNs to prevent this from happening in the future, some services seem to have found away around this, such as ExpressVPN.

Several services are available from TorGuard, including anonymous email, an anonymous proxy, and their Anonymous VPN package. Available for $9.99 a month, they offer 3000+ servers in 55+ countries, unlimited speeds and unlimited bandwidth. You’ll also get five connections, which can be used on Windows, macOS, Linux (specifically Ubuntu), Android, and iOS, and TorGuard accepts payment in BitCoin and LiteCoin.

Meanwhile, if the anonymous proxy interests you, both this and the VPN can be bought together for $11.54 a month.

Our Top VPNs – What Are Yours?

We’ve compiled this list over the course or several years. This means two things: one, that we’re satisfied that the services we’ve included are worthy of their continued presence on the list, and two, that we might have missed a VPN service that you think should be included.

I would never use a free VPN service. The old saying goes that if it's free, you are the product. All your network traffic is going through the VPN and you have no idea what the admin on the other end is doing with it.

Once connected to VPN, can you (chrome)cast to your TV? Everytime I connect to VPN, I am not able to cast to my TV. I think, it is because my TV and my device are in different networks. Is there any way to get around this?

I have a problem with Windscribe's gui showing the opposite of what it is doing. Shows off but really on and vise versa. I have started a ticket with them and sent the logs in but they tell me it is acting properly. They don't ask for screen shots or anything!!

I have been using cyber ghost VPN (a paid version). I got it though a humble bundle.
And once set up it's pretty good
Now I don't care about leaks. I just wanted my ISP to stop throttling me.
The paid version supports Torrents and voip, but only on certain servers (no US based servers support Torrents)
The real issue for me was the setup. I had trouble setting up on my router and messaged support.
Their reply was essentially "we only support ddwrt routers at customer support."
So i had to go out and buy a ddwrt compatible (or preinstalled) router (because I wasn't sure on my router model number, and it was already flashed to Tomato USB and the UI said a different model number then my router.)

I am still using it and from my own internet it is OK, when I need it most, ie, public wifi it is sometimes unusable, so slow. I have compared it at these slow sites with another vpn and the other one (NordVPN) doesn't suffer like PureVPN does, also, every time there is a problem, their help desk wants you to change servers etc..
NordVPN is the other one that seems to work much better.

Sirs: I've been using Strong VPN for years now and they are a very good service. 1st They don't store your data or spy on you. Not so sure about the others on your list though. 2nd. They haven't slowed my access down or dropped my connection frequently. 3rd. Their support is excellent. In the past when I've had a problem they are quick to respond. I'll be sticking with them since you only find out about a service's problem(s) after you set it up and use it and lose your old service in the process. I believe the adage "you get what you pay for" is never truer than when applied to a VPN service. Sometimes "cheap" isn't so cheap. It might even be translated as a "headache"!

I like the free version of Windscribe, but it doesn't use the OpenVPN protocol. I have since decided to subscribe to Private Internet Access and have it running on my two laptops, one of which I use at hotels. PIA doesn't seem to slow my connection, but I do have fairly new and powerful laptops.

Several issues I have had...two services did not work consistently with Outlook smtp email and I had to cancel the subscription. One of them all of a sudden no longer supported Netgear routers - which I had been using !!! I had to flash the router with DDWRT firmware and am still in the process of implementing. So be careful out there. Use the free trial time to check everything out.

HotSpot Shield and IPVanish did not work with my Godaddy/Outlook SMTP email. I ended up with PureVPN which I like a lot. Hundreds of servers around the world, no logging, and Hong Kong based--all good reasons to choose. Their tech support is also excellent and respond quickly and stay with you to work out any issues. Latest, they do not support newer Netgear router firmware, so they guided me through installing DD-WRT in my new router. Also, my speedtest results are faster using Pure then when not using it...

Thank you for sharing this Wonderful Article. This Article helpful and useful for many people because in this Article give good explanation about best VPN services. In this explain some points in detail that helps people for best VPN service.

Excuse me but the whole point of using a vpn is to protect your privacy. Most of the vpn providers of this article are keeping logs. I dont care if they keep it to minimum. They still keep logs. Is this an adverto? if yes then write it.

Whats the point to pay someone to mask your ip/traffic if they log you? This post isnt an attack to Christian Cawley but looking at his title (MakeUseOf's !!!!security!!!!! and Linux editor) and just compiling a shop guide without even taken the time to check their policy for logs, sorry its problematic.

I am very disappointed with this turn of events. This is misguiding readers that are not savvy in vpn or security. Please add corrections or make an add article to cover the logging methods of these vpns providers. In some countries correct choice of vpn can make a big different in life or death. Vpns arent for downloading pirated soft games and movies or music.

I am not sure VPNs really do as advertised. The "modem" provided by your ISP is preset to go to the servers of the ISP. Correct? Usually, the ISP will not give you access to the settings within the "modem". Correct? So, if traffic is still going thru your ISP, are we actually bypassing data caps? And wouldn't this also apply to DNS servers? "Modem" still has to go thru ISP. I understand how the web site being addressed is fooled, but none of this does anything to/for the ISP.

Express VPN Leaks IPv6 and DNS information. I have been a customer for over two months. I found a way to plug it however it is not through their software. I informed them as well. They told me that they didn't support IPv6 thus I should have disabled it. This might or might not have been hidden in their troubleshooting section (at least I didn't see it) however, I have not seen this stated anywhere in their advertising. Nonetheless, with or without blocking the IPv6, DNS is still leaking and their advertisements about privacy are not entirely accurate.
They do have however a great customer service, security, server speed/reliability/availability/bandwidth. But a compromised privacy.

Attention MakeUseOf users -- Trimium VPN is the only reliable working VPN system for Netflix and other streaming services. If you are getting the dreaded "proxy" error while trying to access US content it is time to look at Trimium VPN. Just google it. Easy sign-up with no payment information whatsoever. Try for 14 days. Like it? Sign up! 100% free to try.

I received a nice 'Alleged Copyright Infringement' email from my provider the other day. I have been using utorrent for many years and never had any issues until now (decided to watch if X-men was as bad as the reviews). I've never had any pirating or redistribution notions but since the notice I've decided to start shopping for a VPN service. I noticed a lot of these are also apps and extensions for browsers. In my case would I need a full downloadable program or would a browser based app suffice?

I have used HMA Pro from VPNs mentioned in paid and Hotspot Sheild, Cyberghost, and Tunnelbear from those mentioned in Free VPN. Every VPN has its pros and cons, the best VPN service depends on the needs. Now I am using Ivacy VPN for more than a year, it is I think the best VPN service among the cheap VPNs.

Ivacy is a joke. By the time you hear back from support the 7 days will be over. I don't know why the author is recommending ivacy. It's horrible. I bought a subscription for $20 a couple years ago. Useless.

I use VPN Unlimited by KeepSolid. I bought a lifetime subscription for about $40 US, and can install on Android, Windows, & Linux. Not sure about Mac and Ipads, don't have those. I can have it on 5 devices, and tech support is really helpful.

I tried TunnelBear (Free), and at first it seemed really good, THEN, after a week, I noticed that all of my Google URLs were redirected to Turkey, which broke my eMail connectivity, and caused all searches to display in the Turkish language... TunnelBear tech support responded that the problem was caused by Google. HOWEVER, when I turned TunnelBear OFF, all Google addresses worked OK, when I turned TunnelBear back ON, they reverted to Turkey.

This happened even though I selected to default to a USA VPN server.

Regrettably, TunnelBear could not satisfactorily explain how to fix this, so I moved on to BetterNet...

I am using Betternet Free) and it has been a pleasant surprise. There have been some small glitches, I had to restart the program because it was taking too long to connect and when I exited the program, it froze, but they were short and seem to be a one-time thing. I get good speed in downloading and it doesn't affect streaming. Also I have no problem accessing Hulu. I don't use Netflix.

For privacy concerns read the 2016 article on Torrentfreak's website regarding the locations and privacy policies of various VPNs ( I believe NordVPN which is promoted here comes out fairly well), and there's also the suitability of VPNs to avoid the geo-blocking policies of media streamers like Netflix. Makeuseof had an article on that recently, and I was surprised to see Hotspot Shield do well in that category, among others.

I tried Froot VPN for about 8 months, hoping that the service would improve. It never did. They are extremely disorganized. I would get slow responses to my ticket from a couple of different people, with no help other than the stock responses. I tried leaving a message on their Facebook page, which got a faster response, but again, no help other than the usual responses. I finally told them that I wanted to close my account and that I wanted my money back. I was told that I had gone beyond their 30 day money back policy. I posted on Facebook saying that their service and support was awful. We went back and forth, the guy said there was no record of my previous complaints that he could find, made disparaging remarks about me and my promise to recommend people avoid Froot VPN. I told him to keep the money, that his response was illustrative of an obviously very big problem, and that I would happily continue to not recommend Froot VPN to anyone.

Christian, you might check into the affiliation of Opera browser with SurfEasy. As of (I believe) version 38 of the DEVELOPER version of Opera, SurfEasy access is included in Settings and free to use. I don't know what their plans are for moving that free access into their beta and regular channels, but I think it's also accessible now on Android Opera.

At home on my network it's a simple On/Off selection. I noticed yesterday as I sit in a condo here on the Gulf Coast, it requires that I use a private window before it will activate, presumably because of the unsecure wifi here.

Opera official version now has SurfEasy and it works reasonably well for privacy, but it seems to be not enabled in incognito mode. Also, data limit is 500MB per month which is not much these days but better than nothing and not complaining given that it is for free. Most Opera reviews claim that there is no cap for the free VPN access and I could not find a way to make that happen....other than sign up for their service and pay. I'd consider it if there was a means to select the VPN server to connect to.

Hmmmmm I saw that limit on the Android version but haven't seen it in the desktop version. Have you actually tried it in the dev version? I remember that there were restrictions on the regular Opera that weren't on dev, hence the reason I moved to dev.

I’ve been using Ivacy for a while for torrenting. Except for a few glitches which the support guys fixed straight away, the service works fine. Previously they were offering volume-based packages, now they are offering monthly, semi-annually and annual subscriptions which is a I think an improvement.

I was using Hola, but when I heard the news, I stopped using it immediately. The company was practically selling my bandwidth to God knows who! Now I’ve decided never to go for a free vpn... I’ve now started using Ivacy VPN and I must say it’s a good one.

I was using Private Internet Access for a few months but it was pointless because their servers are recognized by firewalls as VPN so you often are blacklisted in video services.
While not bad overall I would avoid PIA.
Much worse experience I had with TunnelBear. The thing simply didn't work and customer support was not helpful.
I'm currently testing the free version of SecurityKISS. So far so good. Servers are really fast and no problems with the setup.

I USE SPOT FLUX ON MY IMAC OS 10.10.3 AND IT PROVIDES SERVICE TO THE WHOLE MACHINE NOT JUST THE BROWSER. I USE 3 BROWSERS AND THEY ARE ALL PROTECTED BY THIS VPN. IT IS CURRENTLY FREE FOR IMACS AND THEY ALSO HAVE THE PAID VERSION. THE LAPTOPS ARE FORCED TO BUY THE SERVICE ACCORDING TO MY LIMITED INFO. IT IS BASED TO A SERVER STATESIDE WHICH MIGHT INDICATE THE ISP MAY BE MO
NITORING MY USE.?

I don't see my fave VPN (Easy-Hide-IP) listed here. I have tried Nord VPN and you really need to know a lot about VPNs and your computer to use it. I have used Tunnel Bear but their New York, N.Y. IP Address is recognized by Amazon as a VPN. So, No Amazon Prime movies for me. I contacted Tunnel Bear customer service, but, they don't seem to understand the problem with their IP address being known by Amazon as a VPN.
Back to Easy-Hide-IP for me.

Hi Asher: this is a curated list, put together by me based on my own experiences, reviews and feedback on the previous list. VPN Unlimited will have been removed from the list either to keep the list trim, as a result of bad feedback, or both.

You are constantly reviewing the same VPN providers, but does it mean that all other providers are not so good? Have you tested them? I'm asking because I use http://zenvpn.net for almost a year now and I was completely satisfied with it all this time. But maybe I'm missing something, so should I consider to move to some other provider from this list? I'm curious about your point of view as an expert. Thank you in advance

Not positive but would wager Businesses cooperating with Government is not limited to the USA, nor is spying/listening/snooping. Not all personal information is legally protected. Internal policy directs distribution. Businesses require licenses to operate, issued by Government, there are many terms and conditions that apply to these licenses. Receiving a verbal request from a person in authority is an official request, a legal demand/order so to speak resulting in legal action for failure to comply. Release of personal including legally protected information is done all day long, everywhere and without a Court Order, not agreeing with it just saying. Internet terms and conditions that we agree to when we sign up on some online site, in some cases we waive our right to privacy. Inside social engineering is alive and well used, family, friends, coworkers provide volume of information most of which is provided “free” some not. Recently canceled my VPN service, lucky the Poker and Movies sites I use are now web base, so the TOR Network does what by VPN use to do for free, works nicely with 100mbps fibre connection. Mr. Whoever you are; am deaf in one ear, no need to shout I see great.
Regards

Any Business in any Country will handover whatever is required when they are ordered to do so by the Courts of their land refusing to do so will land them in jail. A VPN provider may not keep logs as many advertise but they keep payment records. Nothing to hide nothing to fear - it is some VPN users that use VPN's for things more serious than watching Movies, Playing Poker. People committing Crimes do not should not have the right to keep them private. When my VPN drops (it has) or they take a server down for maintenance with users on it and they do your IP is exposed and assume after a few years my Government if they know are not overly concerned with my VPN offshore poker and movies.

Your comment: "Any Business in any Country will handover whatever is required when they are ordered to do so by the Courts of their land refusing to do so will land them in jail." I agree with you John or whoever you are. Nonetheless and to best of my knowledge ONLY in the U.S., business companies have willingly provided all sorts of
info without BEING OFFICIALLY ASKED TO DO SO ! ! Last but not least, they "FORGOT" (so to speak) to act in accordance to US FEDERAL LAWS and handed info
DIRECTLY to domestic Intelligence agencies!
Regards

In many countrys the local government will refuse to comply with attempts to DOX their VPN users. For example NordVPN is headquartered in Panama. Good luck getting some information out of them.

In Switzerland as opposed to the US, anyone seeking information will have to go to the courts with probable cause for a proper court order, not just present secret threats from the FBI. Don't trust any VPN headquartered in the US or one of the five eyes nations. I suggest visiting the torrent freak web site and search for anonymous and VPN and read the article that comes up.

Actually I won't recommend HMA. They already handed user data over to the FBI. Just google it. Also I won't recommend services located in the US. Since they have things like FISA court gag orders the US isn't safe anymore.
I am using YourPrivateVPN (http://www.yourprivatevpn.com) now. They are a Brazilian company and exist for more than 5 years. Maybe a little bit smaller than the vpn providers already mentioned, but its worth the look.

These all providers are really good i am using most of the providers and that works cool. If anyone want to find more providers so go for vpnranks.com where they can find all these providers details with complete package details.

In our company we chose ICanVPN after some testing. Their servers are located in most of the countries and the connection speed is relatively good being compared to another providers (we had tested) with the similar price range.

StrongVPN, fast, secure, large number of servers they, supports most if not all VPN protocols, do not overload their servers. You can configure your openvpn config file from your account on their Web site where they supply different preset configurations for the end user some includes built in defaults, alternate proto/port, Speed, Ultra Secure, TCP/UDP ports 443/500 after making your choice the file is prepared then you download and use it. Great Live Chat, Remote and email support. This is my third year with StrongVPN and am happy camper as some say.

I've used Express VPN for over a year now and although it drops out if you are not browsing after a time, it's pretty efficient inits worldwide connectivity. I'd certainly recommend it - I tried it because you recommended it sometime ago

Where is PureVPN in the list ??
I am using it since past 6-8 months. It will keep you safe and secure. You can unblock all the restricted content and stream videos after connecting to PureVPN. So many server options to select with. Netflix working perfect ... surprised you guys haven't included it in the list :/

PUREVPN
-more servers than any competitors
-the only one that provides open ports through it`s NAT addon.... This makes possible to be able to access things behind the NAT in the vpn, you can for example run a server inside the vpn and make it accesible all around the world.....

PureVPN sucks!! No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to work on my Linux system. I tried for almost three hours straight and that includes 'chatting' with them and having them tell me everything I'd already done.

Then when I asked for my $50 back, they're giving me the run-around and telling me to give them time to figure out what's wrong...time that they're using to say the seven day refund period is up!

Even worse, they automatically set you up to automatically keep paying them - without asking you if you want to do that!

Also, today I just went back to lodge *another* complaint to simply give me my refund, my user name and password no longer work and I'm locked out of the website.

I didn't see that this company is based in China until I had already made the paypal payment. Paypal is going to try to help, but they can't force these assholes to give me my money back, unfortunately.

My advice - stay as far away from PureVPN as you possibly can, and if you still feel you want to use them, pay with a credit card that will be able to get you your money back quickly and be able to tell PureVPN to FOAD.

UPDATE: It took a *week and a half* for PureVPN to finally give me my money back. Every day I kept telling them I didn't want to try to fix whatever was wrong and why it wasn't working on my system, but every day they would e-mail me and tell me they're looking into getting me a refund but I should let them try to fix the problem first. *Every* day for a week and a half this went on. The same thing from them over and over and over!

Finally I got Paypal involved and even then it still took three more days of the same e-mails from PureVPN and me telling them in not very nice ways anymore that I simply wanted my money back.

You'd be a fool to go with this company. They're based in China and China has already been found to be putting backdoors in routers made there etc. If PureVPN had been any less ethical than their pathetic show of it they have now, they could have kept my money and I would have had nothing I could have done about it. Can't go over to China and kick some idiots butt, unfortunately, so you'd be out that money.

Help me understand... These are solutions for a specific computers' access to the Internet, yes?
What do I use if I want a VPN at my router level so any traffic through my WiFi (such as my Wii) goes through a vpn?

Then you find a VPN service that has a setup for your router. Many of them do. Even better, if you have a router that's supported by DD-WRT, flash your router with that and then put the VPN info in your newly flashed router and you can have 60 computers go through your router, all being protected by your VPN. That way you aren't breaking the VPN services rules by trying to use more than the one or two 'allowed' devices to go out through the VPN.

Thank you for compling this list. awesome site, and great informative topic, one of which is always top of mind for me. I learned a good deal from the article and the kind folks who shared their uses. I was (and have been in other - though not as thorough, and well-written) surprised not to see more about (if anything about AirVPN) - thought as the previous poster as of this writing, notes it. I have been using it for years too. I needed absolute security, and legitimately based. Written by hackers in Spain after a conference, I feel comfortable using their services. Legally, they stand up, and anonymity are valued. They have solid legal backing pretty bullet proof from what I understand. I do feel that this is an excellent service and have never had any issues with it and in fact, feel it is just another excellent layer of steps to protect my right to privacy. Not that I need to hide anything -- well, everyone says that :) - I do feel that these guys know what they are doing. Service is excellent, and I certainly don't mind paying for it - great service. I like that I can - go anywhere in the world and pick and choose various servers. They don't keep log files, and what they do and how they do it is legit. They also have been recognized as the previous poster state been around for a few years indeed, and that is something that further is something, if I were newer to this to consider. Free VPN, I'm not knocking it - it is good, and I will check these other players out. This was a top contender for privacy in a security/'hacking' in a very 'paranoid' legit review of privacy/security services including VPN. SpiderOak was in that review, a while back as well for cloud based storage, which also is encrypted, and pretty damn secure- they don't know who I am ok with that. Better not lose your pw through, they won't help you - seriously.SImilarly to your discretion to a large degree is true with AirVPN, your privacy is valued at least I feel so, you can be as transparent as you wish or obscure as you wish. Thanks for a stimulating and informative article folks and author!!!! Great one to research for sure!

Well I mostly use Zenmate Chrome extension if I need to unblock site or streaming normally its free and fast. I have used IPVanish VPN and its really great. IPVanish offer fast speed, data encryption, protocols, features, multiple IPs, gaming support etc. If you guys need suggestion and recommendation for best VPN you can visit bestvpnservice.com for premium VPN provider reviews and discount details.

I found that the app provided with Private Internet Access brings my big, honking Core I7 machine to its knees. It performs fine as a standard Windows VPN service but I don't think you get as tight a cryptographic wrap, such as hiding torrents, that way.

TunnelBear.com - under "Help" -> "Getting Started" -> "Privacy" says:
We keep absolutely no logs which can identify your location or activities. TunnelBear only stores the very basic information we need to operate our service.
More details at: https://www.tunnelbear.com/privacy-policy/
Of course, they also say: You aren’t allowed to do illegal stuff with TunnelBear
... Enjoy ...

I've been using PIA for awhile. The only problem I have had with it is on torrents being uploaded. I like to keep up on what's popular in the UK and I've been pinged by my ISP a couple times for having (unknown to me) files in the uploading torrent that are flagged by a takedown filter. Coming down has had no issues. I suspect that the problem lies with the seed torrent going out to other people, but I don't understand how the file is traced back to me if it is going through the VPN.

From Terms and Conditions : "We log only access attempts to our servers (for security and troubleshooting), user session durations and the bandwidth used (for purposes of providing detailed information intended solely for each concrete user) and user clicks made to our software (to track popularity and assist in application and service improvements)".

So in other words.... they keep logs. If they're tracking server access, they could be tracking IP's, connection times, bandwidth utilization, etc. And a log is subpoena-able in most jurisdictions. If that matters to you and you want a zero-log provider, VPN Unlimited is not the right choice for you. If you simply don't care (eg Harry), then VPN Unlimited would be just fine.

I've been quite happy with Cloak, though I would love to see an in-depth review. I switched when my employer started blocking hotspot shield servers, which is annoying because i'd paid for a year's subscription.
I also was getting annoyed with Hotspot Shield's complete inability to properly connect on demand. After more than a year of use and several updates, the only way I could ever get it to work on my iphone was connecting manually.
Cloak's servers aren't blocked at work, the connection happens really quickly, and I can enjoy wi-fi access with on-demand protection for networks I deem untrusted. Cloak just seems to work without fail.

I use PIA for my various needs. The price is right and performance is good enough for my needs. I can sustain maybe 30 Mbit/sec of data transfers through the VPN even connecting to an international end point.

You may want to consider VPNArea (http://vpnarea.com), servers in 50 countries, doesn't keep logs, the software for Mac and Windows is full with perks and they've been around for few years now. They have strong network presence in Asia, Australia and Canada.

torrents are allowed. Most importantly for me - it sells cheap dedicated IPs with free server, which you'll need for Hulu or other sites that don't like more than 1 user from same IP.

Hey Andy, switched from HMA to VPNArea because they allow using the service on 5 devices so that my wife and daughter can use it too.
Speed is solid I could pull 38mbp/s on a realistic 50mbp/s Internet connection, long live fiber optic :-))

I used a coupon when bought membership so if you're going to sign up look around for a coupon and you can get some discount, although their price is already much better than HMA and ipvanish and others.

Christian Cawley is a Deputy Editor at MakeUseOf, covering security, Linux, DIY and programming, with extensive experience in desktop and software support. Christian is a regular contributor to Linux User & Developer magazine, as well as specials including Raspberry Pi for Beginners, and Raspberry Pi for Kids. He's a Raspberry…